The Other Story Read Online Free Page B

resist touching her breasts, and when she pulled his lips down to their fullness, he thought he was going to pass out from ecstasy. What would have happened, he often wondered, if Véronique’s husband had not started to call her name from the garden? Had he seen them? They all got up quickly, brushing the sand off their clothes. The women patted their hair, giggling. Nicolas felt dizzy and nearly stumbled. François’s face was white, his lips swollen and red. He seemed about to faint. The women nonchalantly picked up their glasses and their shoes and strolled back to the house arm in arm, shouting out gaily to Gérard that they were coming. François and Nicolas waited a while before joining the party. When they turned up, nervous and blushing, Gérard, Véronique, and Nathalie had already left. Nicolas never saw them again. But he knew he would never forget that night. For years, he had only to whisper “Granville” to François with a knowing smile, and the memories of that evening would flood back, intact.
    Nicolas gets up now for his first swim. He will text François later. He glances down at Malvina, curled up under her parasol like a little animal, fast asleep. Her face still seems pale. He dives into the sea, and when he comes up for air, he finds himself gasping with a mixture of pleasure and joy, the pleasure of the velvety caress on his skin, the joy of coming back to the exact sensation he had missed since Camogli. The water here is deep immediately. It is absolutely transparent. Nicolas can stare all the way down to the seabed, paved with pale oval stones, and watch silvery fish flit past. He flings his arms and legs out like a starfish and floats on the surface. Underwater, his ears make out the tranquil putter of a nearby boat.
    Three days. Three blissful days. Three days just for him. This beautiful, quiet haven. The blue of it. No one knows where he is. He did not even Tweet it, refrained from posting it on his Facebook wall. Should he be needed, his BlackBerry is there to do its job. “Have a good rest, signor,” the beach attendant had said, beaming as she spread out a towel for Nicolas on the deck chair. Three days to pretend to be writing the book. Three days of laziness.
    Malvina opens one eye as he is drying himself.
    “You should have a swim,” he says.
    She shrugs. “I don’t feel too good.”
    “Maybe something you ate?”
    “Maybe.”
    She nestles back into her deck chair.
    It is getting on toward noon. The sun pounds down. The frizzy brunette and the hairy guy arrive. He is still on the phone (is he ever off it?), and she totters on her glittery platform shoes. Once they have decided where to sit, once they have been handed the thick black-and-white towels stamped with the letters GN, she stands up. Slowly and tantalizingly, she takes off the top of her bathing suit, like Rita Hayworth removing that glove. Her breasts are round and pert, with dark pink nipples. Not fake bosoms, but glorious real ones that wobble ever so slightly and that Nicolas can imagine frantically cramming into his mouth. She starts to anoint them with sun oil, and Nicolas can hardly believe she is doing this, right here, right now, with such deliberate, slow movements. All the men are staring. The staff members seem transfixed, sweating under their black shirts. The Belgian goes pinker, the Swiss adjusts his dark glasses, and the French ogles to such an extent that his wife gives him a dig in the ribs. Only the boyfriend seems impervious to the scene. Nicolas neatly takes his eyes off her just before Malvina notices.
    Nicolas has learned to be clever where Malvina is concerned. Her intensity harbors a powerful strain of silent jealousy. She picks up the remotest sign of what she imagines is danger—an overadmiring fan, a too-friendly reader, or simply a pretty girl. When Malvina left London two months ago, giving up her studies and all her friends there, to come to live with him in Paris on the rue du Laos,